Configuration files

[D]Allow pg_hba.conf to specify host names along with IP addresses

Host name lookup could occur when the postmaster reads the pg_hba.conf file, or when the backend starts. Another solution would be to reverse lookup the connection IP and check that hostname against the host names in pg_hba.conf. We could also then check that the host name maps to the IP address.

Standby server mode

[D] Add capability to take and send a base backup over the streaming replication connection, making it possible to initialize a new standby server from a running primary server without a WAL archive or other access to the primary server.

SQL Commands

When this is done, backslash-quote should be prohibited in non-E'' strings because of possible confusion over how such strings treat backslashes. Basically, '' is always safe for a literal single quote, while \' might or might not be based on the backslash handling rules.

Write-Ahead Log

[D]Allow WAL logging to be turned off for a table, but the table might be dropped or truncated during crash recovery

Allow tables to bypass WAL writes and just fsync() dirty pages on commit. This should be implemented using ALTER TABLE, e.g. ALTER TABLE PERSISTENCE [ DROP | TRUNCATE | DEFAULT ]. Tables using non-default logging should not use referential integrity with default-logging tables. A table without dirty buffers during a crash could perhaps avoid the drop/truncate.